PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - When do you lose the ability to fly your aircraft?
Old 30th Mar 2022, 17:19
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pchapman
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
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I like to always fly it onto the runway with extra energy to prevent a gust of wind making me look stupider.
vs.
FTAOD you should always land at the minimum airspeed you can, even if you need full control deflections to keep your line. If you can't do that then find another runway.
I think we could have a good long debate on that whole issue -- maybe in a new thread!

Yes one doesn't want to start landing way too fast, especially if talking about a larger heavier aircraft that might be more runway length limited. Or forcing the plane to the ground, leading to bounces or porpoising.

[Edit: what I wrote below isn't that different from the first time, but I guess I'm trying to describe the whole process again to try to get the explanation through.]

But normally in a light plane I don't want land at absolute minimum speed either. In typical cases just flare, let it descend slowly to the runway at a rate acceptable to the aircraft's landing gear, plant it firmly but not hard, and transition to rolling out on the runway. One doesn't want to be eking out more and more flare, nose getting way high, with stall horn blaring (in a certified aircraft), more likely to get drifted by crosswinds -- especially if one has already straightened out, as one might not know whether it will be 1 or 4 more seconds before for the plane runs out of lift and drops the last couple inches to the ground. Going for the absolute minimum speed leaves the plane susceptible to every little bit of turbulence or gust. Fun to do in very calm or zero turbulence conditions, but not for everyday.
(Obviously there are going to be variations by aircraft type, how much the gear absorb any landing shock, whether it is a regular tri gear landing or crosswind one-wheel landing by a tail dragger, etc. so I'm not trying to cover every possible situation.)



Last edited by pchapman; 31st Mar 2022 at 18:25.
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